These miraculous4 escapes from the toils6 of a great city give one a dearer impression of the breadth with which it is planned, and of the civic7 order and elegance8 pervading9 its whole system; yet for that very reason there is perhaps more interest in a slow progress through one of173 the great industrial quarters such as must be crossed to reach the country lying to the northeast of Paris.
To start on a bright spring morning from the Place du Palais Bourbon, and follow the tide of traffic along the quays10 of the left bank, passing the splendid masses of the Louvre and Notre Dame11, the Conciergerie and the Sainte Chapelle; to skirt the blossoming borders of the Jardin des Plantes, and cross the Seine at the Pont d’Austerlitz, getting a long glimpse down its silver reaches till they divide to envelope the Cité; and then to enter by the Boulevard Diderot on the long stretch of the Avenue Daumesnil, which leads straight to the Porte Dorée of Vincennes—to follow this route at the leisurely12 pace necessitated13 by the dense14 flow of traffic, is to get a memorable15 idea of the large way in which Paris deals with some of her municipal problems.
The Avenue Daumesnil, in particular, with its interminable warehouses17 and cheap shops and guinguettes, would anywhere else be the prey18 of grime and sordidness19. Instead, it is spacious20, clean, and prosaic21 only by contrast to the elegance of the thoroughfares preceding it; and at the Porte174 Dorée it gives one over to the charming alleys of a park as well-tended and far more beautiful than the Bois de Boulogne—a park offering the luxury of its romantic lawns and lakes for the sole delectation of the packed industrial quarters that surround it.
The woods of this wonderful Bois de Vincennes are real woods, full of blue-bells and lilies of the valley; and as one flies through them in the freshness of the May morning, Paris seems already far behind, a mere22 fading streak23 of factory-smoke on the horizon. One loses all thought of it when, beyond Vincennes, the road crosses the Marne at Joinville-sur-Pont. Thence it passes through a succession of bright semi-suburban24 villages, with glimpses, here and there, of low white chateaux or of little grey churches behind rows of clipped horn-beam; climbing at length into an open hilly country, through which it follows the windings26 of the Marne to Meaux.
Bossuet’s diocesan seat is a town of somewhat dull exterior28, with a Gothic cathedral which has suffered cruelly at the hands of the reformers; for, by an odd turn of fate, before becoming the175 eyrie of the “Eagle,” it was one of the principal centres of Huguenot activity—an activity deplorably commemorated30 in the ravaged31 exterior of the church.
From Meaux to Rheims the country grows in charm, with a slightly English quality in its rolling spaces and rounded clumps32 of trees; but nothing could be more un-English than the grey-white villages, than the stony33 squares bordered by clipped horn-beams, the granite34 market-crosses, the round-apsed churches with their pointed35 bell-towers.
One of these villages, Braisne, stands out in memory by virtue36 of its very unusual church. This tall narrow structure, with its curious western front, so oddly buttressed37 and tapering38, and rising alone and fragmentary among the orchards39 and kitchen-gardens of a silent shrunken hamlet, is the pathetic survival of a powerful abbey, once dominating its surroundings, but now existing only as the parish church of the knot of sleepy houses about it.
A stranger and less explicable vestige40 of the past is found not far off in the curious walled village of Bazoches, which, though lying in the176 plain, must have been a small feudal41 domain42, since it still shows its stout43 medi?val defences and half-fallen gate-towers tufted with wallflowers and wild shrubs44. The distinguishing fact about Bazoches is that it is not a dwindled45 town, with desert spaces between the walls and a surviving nucleus46 of houses: its girdle of stone fits as closely as a finger-ring, and whatever were its past glories they must have been contained in the same small compass that suffices it to-day.
Beyond Braisne the country is less hilly, the pastures are replaced by vineyards, and the road runs across a wide plain to Rheims. The extent of the town, and its modern manufacturing outskirts47, make its distant silhouette48 less characteristic than that of Bourges or Chartres, which are still so subordinated to the central mass of their cathedrals. At Rheims the cathedral comes on one unexpectedly, in the centre of the town; but once seen it enters into the imagination, less startlingly but perhaps more completely, more pervasively49, than any other of the great Gothic monuments of France. This sense of being possessed50 by it, subdued51 to it, is perhaps partly due—at least in the case of the simple tourist—to177 the happy, the unparalleled fact, that the inn at Rheims stands immediately opposite the cathedral—so that, admitted at once to full communion with its incomparable west front, one returns, after each excursion, to renew and deepen the relation, to become reabsorbed in it without any conscious effort of attention.
There are two ways of feeling those arts—such as sculpture, painting and architecture—which appeal first to the eye: the technical, and what must perhaps be called the sentimental52 way. The specialist does not recognise the validity of the latter criterion, and derision is always busy with the uncritical judgments53 of those who have ventured to interpret in terms of another art the great plastic achievements. The man, in short, who measures the beauty of a cathedral not by its structural54 detail consciously analysed, but by its total effect in indirectly55 stimulating56 his sensations, in setting up a movement of associated ideas, is classed—and who shall say unjustly?—as no better than the reader who should pretend to rejoice in the music of Lycidas without understanding the meaning of its words. There is hardly a way of controverting57 the axiom that178 thought and its formulation are indivisible, or the deduction58 that, therefore, the only critic capable of appreciating the beauty of a great work of architecture is he who can resolve it into its component59 parts, understand the relation they bear to each other, and not only reconstruct them mentally, but conceive of them in a different relation, and visualise the total result of such modifications60.
Assuredly—yet in those arts that lie between the bounds of thought and sense, and leaning distinctly toward the latter, is there not room for another, a lesser61 yet legitimate62 order of appreciation—for the kind of confused atavistic enjoyment63 that is made up of historical association, of a sense of mass and harmony, of the relation of the building to the sky above it, to the lights and shadows it creates about it—deeper than all, of a blind sense in the blood of its old racial power, the things it meant to far-off minds of which ours are the oft-dissolved and reconstituted fragments? Such enjoyment, to be of any value even to the mind that feels it, must be based indeed on an approximate acquaintance with the conditions producing the building, the structural theories that led up to it, their meaning,179 their evolution, their relation to the moral and mental growth of the builders—indeed, it may be affirmed that this amount of familiarity with the past is necessary to any genuine ?sthetic enjoyment. But even this leaves the enjoyment under the slur64 of being merely “amateurish,” and therefore in need of a somewhat courageous65 defence by those who, unequipped for technical verdicts, have yet found a more than transient satisfaction in impressions of this mixed and nebulous order.
Such a defence is furnished, to a degree elsewhere unmatched, by the exceptional closeness of intercourse66 to which propinquity admits the traveller at Rheims. Here is the great Presence on one’s threshold—in one’s window: surprised at dawn in the mystery of its re-birth from darkness; contemplated67 at mid-day in the distinctness of its accumulated detail, its complex ritual of stone; absorbed into the mind, into the heart, again at darkness—felt lastly and most deeply under the midnight sky, as a mystery of harmony and order no less secret and majestic68 than the curves of the stars in their orbits.
Such pleasures, at any rate, whatever their180 value as contributions to special lines of knowledge, enrich the ?sthetic consciousness, prepare it for fresh and perhaps more definite impressions, enlarge its sense of the underlying70 relation between art and life, between all the manifold and contradictory71 expressions of human energy, and leave it thus more prepared to defend its own attitude, to see how, in one sense—a sense not excluding, but in a way enveloping72 and fertilising all the specialised forms of technical competence—Gefühl ist alles.
* * * * *
It is one of the wonders of this rich northeastern district that the traveller may pass, in a few hours, and through a region full of minor73 interest, to another great manifestation74 of medi?val strength: the fortress75 of Coucy. Two such contrasting specimens77 of the vigour78—individual and collective—of that tremendous age are hardly elsewhere, in France, to be found in such close neighbourhood; and it adds to the interest of both to know that Coucy was a fief of Rheims, bestowed79 by its Archbishop on a knight80 who had distinguished81 himself in the First Crusade. It was a great-grandson of this Enguerrand de181 Boves who built the central keep and the walls; but the castle was farther enlarged and adorned82 when, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, it passed into the possession of Louis d’Orléans, the brother of Charles VI.
It is doubly interesting to see Coucy after Carcassonne, because the two fortresses83 present the opposite extremes of feudal secular84 architecture, Carcassonne being the chief surviving example of a large walled town with a comparatively small central castle, while at Coucy the castle is the predominating feature, both in size and site, and the town no more than a handful of houses within the outer circuit of its defences. Both strongholds are of course situated85 on steep heights, and that of Coucy, though it rises from slopes clad in foliage86, and therefore less stern of outline than the dry southern rock of Carcassonne, stands no less superbly than its rival. In fact there is perhaps no single point from which Carcassonne produces quite such an effect of concentrated power as the keep and castle-towers of Coucy squaring themselves on their western ridge87. Yet such comparisons are unprofitable, because the two fortresses were designed for purposes182 so different, and under such different conditions, that the one is necessarily most vigorous where the other had the least need for a display of strength.
Coucy, in its present fallen state, gains incalculably from the charm of its surroundings—the lovely country enfolding it in woods and streams, the shaded walks beneath its ivy-hung ramparts, and above all the distinct and exquisite88 physiognomy of the tiny old town which these ramparts enclose. The contrast between the humble89 yet stout old stone houses ranged, as it were, below the salt, and the castle throned on its dais of rock at one end of the enclosure, seems to sum up the whole social system of the Middle Ages as luminously90 and concisely91 as Taine’s famous category. Coucy has the extraordinary arch?ological value of a place that has never outgrown92 the special institutions producing it: the hands of the clock have stopped at the most characteristic moment of its existence; and so impressive, even to the unhistorical mind, is its compact and vivid “exteriorisation” of a great phase of history, that one wonders and shudders93 at, and finally almost comes to admire, the superhuman183 stolidity94 of the successful merchant who has planted, on the same ledge69 as the castle, and almost parallel with its Titanic95 towers, a neatly96 turreted97 suburban villa25, the sole attempt of modern Coucy to give the retort to its overwhelming past.
* * * * *
Taking Coucy as a centre, the traveller may, within a few hours, extraordinarily98 vary his impressions, since the remarkable99 group of monuments distributed over the triangular100 bit of France between Paris, Rheims and Saint Quentin, comprises a characteristic example of almost every architectural period from the early Middle Ages till the close of the eighteenth century—the extremes being sometimes in as close touch as Tracy-le-Val and Prémontré.
Turning first to the west, through a country of rolling fields and wooded heights, vaguely101 English in its freedom from the devouring102 agriculture of the centre, one comes on the most English impression in France—the towers of Noyon rising above a girdle of orchards and meadows. Noyon, indeed, to the end, maintains in one this illusion—so softly misted with184 verdure, so lacking in the sharp edges of the dry stony French town, it seems, by its old street-architecture of cross-beams and stucco, by the smoothly103 turfed setting of the cathedral, and the crowning surprise of a genuine “close” at its back, to corroborate104 at every step the explorer’s first impression.
In the cathedral, indeed, one is no longer in England—though still without being very definitely in France. For the interior of Noyon, built at a time when northern art was still groping for its specific expression, is a thing apart in cathedral architecture, one of those fortunate variations from which, in the world of art as of nature, new forms are sometimes developed. That in this case the variation remained sterile105, while it makes, no doubt, for a more exclusive enjoyment of Noyon, leaves one conjecturing106 on the failure to transmit itself of so original and successful an experiment. The deviation107 consists, principally, in the fact that the transept ends of Noyon are rounded, so that they form, in conjunction with the choir108, a kind of apsidal trefoil of the most studied and consummate109 grace. The instinctive110 use of the word grace185 perhaps explains as well as anything the failure of Noyon to repeat itself (save once, half-heartedly, in the south transept of Soissons). Grace at the expense of strength is, especially from without, the total result of this unique blending of curves, this prodigal111 repetition of an effect that, to produce its deepest impression, should be used singly, and only as the culmination112, the ecstatic flowering, of a vigorous assemblage of straight lines.
But within the church, and especially from the point where the sweep of both transepts may be seen flowing into the curves of the choir, one is too deeply penetrated113 by the grace to feel in it any latent weakness. For pure loveliness of line nothing in northern church architecture—not even the long bold sweep of Canterbury choir—surpasses the complex pattern of the east end of Noyon. And in the detail of the interior construction the free, almost careless, mingling114 of the round and the pointed arch heightens the effect of Noyon as of something experimental, fugitive115, not to come again—the blue flower, as it were, of the Gothic garden—an experiment which seems to express the fantasy of a single mind186 rather than such collective endeavour as brought forth116 the great secular churches of the Middle Ages.
While Noyon offers, in its general setting, and in certain architectural peculiarities118, suggestions so specifically English, the type of its chief civic monument seems drawn119 from that Burgundian region where the passing of Gothic into Renaissance120 forms found so rich and picturesque121 an expression. The H?tel de Ville of Noyon, built in the middle of the fifteenth century, is a charming product of that transitional moment which was at its best in the treatment of municipal buildings, since domestic architecture was still cramped122, and driven to an overcrowding of detail, by the lingering habit of semi-defensive123 construction. In the creation of the town-hall the new art could throw off feudal restraints, and the architect of the graceful124, ornate yet sober building at Noyon—with its two fa?ades so equally “composed” as wholes, so lingered over and caressed125 in every part—has united all the freedom of the new spirit with the patient care for detail that marked the old.
NOYON: H?TEL DE VILLE
At Saint Quentin, not far to the northwest of187 Noyon, a town-hall of more imposing126 dimensions suggests other architectural affinities127. This part of France is close to the Low Countries, and Flemish influences have overflowed128 the borders. The late Gothic H?tel de Ville at Saint Quentin, with its elaborately composed fa?ade surmounted129 by three pointed gables, was completed at a period when, in other parts of France, Renaissance forms were rapidly superseding130 the earlier style. But here the Gothic lingers, as it did in the Low Countries, in a rich yet sober and sturdy form of civic architecture which suits the moist grey skies, the flat fields, the absence of any abrupt131 or delicate lines in the landscape. Saint Quentin, a large dull manufacturing town, with a nucleus of picturesque buildings grouped about its town-hall and its deplorably renovated132 collegiate church, has a tone so distinctively133 northern and provincial135, that its other distinguishing possession—the collection of portraits by the great pastelliste Latour—seems almost as much expatriated as though it were actually beyond the frontier. It is difficult to conceive of the most expert interpreter of the Parisian face as forming his style on physiognomies observed in188 the sleepy streets and along the sluggish136 canals of Saint Quentin; and the return of his pictures to his birthplace, if it has a certain historical fitness, somehow suggests a violent psychological dislocation, and makes one regard the vivid countenances137 lining138 the walls of the Musée Lécuyer as those of émigrés yearning139 to be back across the border. For Latour worked in the Attic140 age when the least remoteness from Paris was exile; and one may reasonably fancy the unmistakable likeness141 between all his sitters to be the result of the strong centralising pressure which left the French face no choice between Parisianism and barbarism.
ST. QUENTIN: H?TEL DE VILLE
One’s first impression on entering this singular portrait gallery is of coming into a salon142 where all the habitués have taken the same tone, where the angles of difference have been so rubbed down that personalities143 are as hard to differentiate144 as in a group of Orientals. The connecting link which unites a company ranging from Vernezobre, the colour-dealer, to Madame la Dauphine, from the buffoon145 Manelli to the Academician Duclos—this unifying146 trait is found in the fixed147 smile on the lips of all the sitters. It189 is curious, and a little disconcerting, on first entering, to see faces of such marked individuality—from the rough unshorn Vernezobre to the mincing148 Camargo—overrun by the same simper of “good company”—so disconcerting that only by eliminating the universal Cupid’s-bow mouth, and trying to see the other features without it, can one do justice to the vigorous and penetrating149 portraiture150 of Latour. Then indeed the pictures affirm themselves as “documents,” and the artist’s technical skill in varying his methods with the type of his sitters becomes only less interesting than the psychological insight of which, after all, it is a partial expression. One’s attention is at first absorbed by the high personal interest of the portraits; but when this has been allowed for, the general conclusion resulting from their collective study is that, even in that day of feminine ascendancy151, the man’s face, not only plastically but psychologically, was a far finer “subject” than the woman’s. Latour had before his easel some of the most distinguished examples of both; and how the men triumph and stand out, how Rousseau and d’Alembert, Maurice de Saxe and the matchless Vernezobre190 overshadow and efface152 all the Camargos and Dauphinesses, the Favarts and Pompadours of the varied153 feminine assortment154! Only one little ghostly nameless creature—a model, a dancer, the catalogue uncertainly conjectures—detaches herself from the polite assemblage as if impaled155 with quivering wings on the sharp pencil of the portraitist. One wonders if she knew she had been caught....
* * * * *
The short run from Saint Quentin to Laon carries one, through charming scenery, from the Low Countries into a region distinctively French, but with such a touch of romance as Turner saw in the sober French landscape when he did his “Rivers and Harbours.” Laon, the great cathedral town of the north-east, is not seated on a river; but the ridge that carries it rises so abruptly156 from the plain, and so simulates the enclosing curves of a bay, that, as we approached it, the silvery light on the spring fields at its base seemed like the shimmer157 of water.
Seen from the road to Saint Quentin, Laon is one of the stateliest hill-towns of France—indeed it suggests rivalry158 with the high-perched191 Umbrian cities rather than with any nearer neighbours. At one extremity159 of the strangely hooked cliff, the two ends of which bend toward each other like a thumb and forefinger160, stands the ruined abbey church of Saint Vincent, now a part of the arsenal161; at the other rises the citadel162, behind which are grouped the cathedral and episcopal palace; and the apex163 of the triangle, between these pronged extremities164, is occupied by the church of Saint Martin, which lifts its Romanesque towers above the remains165 of a Premonstratensian abbey. In the sheltered hollow enclosed between the thumb and forefinger lies the Cuve de Saint Vincent, a garden district of extraordinary fertility, and beyond it the interminable plain flows away toward the Belgian frontier.
To the advantage of this site Laon adds the possession of well-preserved ramparts, of two or three fortified166 gates to which clusters of old houses have ingeniously attached themselves, and above all of its seven-towered cathedral—a cathedral now no longer, though its apse still adjoins an ancient group of diocesan buildings, from the cloistered168 court of which one obtains192 the finest impression of the lateral169 mass of the monument.
Notre Dame of Laon ranks in size among the “secondary” French cathedrals; but both in composition and in detail it occupies a place in architecture as distinctive134 as its natural setting, and perhaps no higher praise can be awarded it than to say that, like the church of Vézelay, it is worthy170 of the site it occupies.
LAON: GENERAL VIEW OF THE TOWN AND CATHEDRAL
The seven towers of Laon are its most notable ornament171; no other cathedral roof of France bears such a glorious crown. Four only of the towers have received their upper tiers of arcades172; but the others rise high enough above the roof-ridge to break its outline with their massive buttresses174 and pyramidal capping. The taller four are distinguished by the originality175 of their upper stories, of which the intermediate one is octagonal, and broken up into four groups of arches of extreme lightness and vigour, separated by stilted176 round-arched openings which are carried through to the upper tier of the tower. At the west end of the church, the open niches177 formed by the octagonal sally of the tower-arcades are filled by colossal178 stone oxen, modelled193 with a bold realism, and advancing from their high-perched stalls almost as triumphantly179 as the brazen180 horses above the door of Saint Mark’s.
These effigies181 are supposed to commemorate29 the services of the patient beasts who dragged the stone for the cathedral up the cruel hill of Laon; and looking up at their silhouettes182, projected ponderously183 against the blue, one is inclined to see in them a symbol of medi?val church-building—of the moral and material cost at which Christianity reared its monuments.
The oxen of Laon and the angels of Saint Père sous Vézelay might indeed be said to stand for the two chief factors in this unparalleled outburst of religious activity—the visionary passion that aroused it, and the painful expenditure184 of human and animal labour that made the vision a reality. When one reads of the rapidity with which many of these prodigious185 works were executed, of the fever of devotion that flamed in whole communities, one has, under the gladness and exaltation, glimpses of a drudgery186 as unceasing and inconceivable as that of the pyramid-builders, and out of which, perhaps, have grown the more vigorous, the stabler fibres of European194 character—and one feels that the triumphing oxen of Laon, though they stand for so vast a sum of dull, unrewarded, unintelligible187 toil5, have on the whole done more for civilisation188 than the angels of Saint Père.
* * * * *
At Soissons, an old city saturated189 with Roman and Merovingian memories, Gothic art again triumphs, but in a different and a milder strain.
The short run from Laon to Soissons, through a gently undulating landscape, prepares one for these softer impressions. The Gallo-Roman city has neither the proud site nor the defensive outline of Laon. It lies in the valley of the Aisne, in a circle of wooded hills, with the river winding27 peaceably between the old town and its faubourg of Saint Vaast. Passing through this faubourg, and crossing the Aisne, one is caught in a maze190 of narrow streets, which lead up tortuously191 to the cathedral square. The pressure of surrounding houses makes it difficult to get a comprehensive view of the church, but one receives, in narrow glimpses through the clipped limes of the market-place, a general impression of grace and sobriety that somehow precludes195 any strong individual effect. The cathedral of Soissons is indeed chiefly remarkable for its repetition of the rounded transepts of Noyon; though in this case (for reasons which it would be interesting to learn) the round end, while receiving the farther development of an aisle192 and triforium, has been applied193 only to one transept.
The thought of Soissons, however, at least in the mind of the passing impressionist, must remain chiefly associated with that rarest creation of the late Gothic of the north-east, the fa?ade of Saint Jean des Vignes. This church, which formed part of a monastic settlement in the outskirts of the town, is now almost in ruins, and of the abbatial buildings around it there remain only two admirable fragments of the cloister167 arcade173, and the abbot’s house, built at a much later date. So complete is the outline of the beautiful west front that one would hardly guess the ruin of the nave194 but for the blue sky showing through the vast circle of the central rose, from which every fragment of tracery has been stripped. Yet one can pardon even that inhumanity to the destroyers who respected the towers—those incomparable towers, so harmonious196 in their divergences196, so typical of that lost secret of medi?val art—the preservation197 of symmetry in unlikeness. These western towers of Saint Jean, rising strongly on each side of the central door, and reinforcing the airy elegance of the fa?ade by their vigorous vertical198 buttressing199, break, at the level of the upper gable, into pyramidal masses of differing height and breadth, one more boldly tapering, the other more massive and complex, yet preserving in a few essential features—the placing of the openings, the correspondence of strong horizontal lines—a unity200 that dominates their differences and binds201 them into harmony with the whole fa?ade. It is sad, on passing through the gaping202 western doorway203, to find one’s self on a bit of waste ground strewn with fragments of sculpture and masonry—sadder still to have the desolation emphasized by coming here on a bit of Gothic cloister, there on a still more distinctive specimen76 of Renaissance arcading204. The quality of these surviving fragments indicates how great must have been the interest, both ?sthetic and historical, of this beautiful ruin, and revives the vain wish that, in some remote corner of Europe,197 invasion and civil war might have spared at least one complete example of a great monastic colony, enabling one to visualise the humaner side of that medi?val life which Carcassonne evokes205 in its militant206 aspect.
SOISSONS: RUINED CHURCH OF SAINT-JEAN-DES-VIGNES
* * * * *
The return from Soissons to Paris holds out so many delightful207 alternatives, in respect both of scenery and architecture, that, in April especially, the traveller may be excused for wavering between Compiègne and Senlis, between Beauvais and Saint Leu d’Esserent. Perhaps the road which traverses Senlis and Saint Leu, just because it offers less exceptional impressions, brings one closer to the heart of old France, to its inexhaustible store of sober and familiar beauty. Senlis, for instance, is only a small sleepy town, with two or three churches of minor interest—with that the guide-book might dismiss it; but had there been anything in all our wanderings quite comparable to the impression produced by that little cathedral in its quiet square—a monument so compact yet noble, so embroidered208 with delicate detail, above all so sunned-over with a wonderful golden lichen198 that it seems like a dim old jewel-casket from which the gilding209 is almost worn?
The other churches of Senlis, enclosed, like the cathedral, in the circuit of half-ruined walls that make a miniature cité of the inner town, have something of the exquisite quality of its central monument. Both, as it happens, have been secularised, and Saint Pierre, the later and more ornate of the two buildings, has suffered the irony210 of being converted into a market, while Saint Frambourg, an ancient collegiate church, has sunk to the uses of a storage warehouse16. In each case, access to the interior is sometimes hard to obtain; but the two fa?ades, one so delicate in its early Gothic reticence211, the other so prodigal of the last graces of the style, carry on almost unbrokenly the architectural chronicle which begins with the Romanesque cathedral; and the neglect, so painful to witness in the interior, has given them a surface-tone almost rich enough to atone212 for the cost at which it has been acquired.
* * * * *
If, on leaving Senlis, one turns westward, skirting the wooded glades213 of Chantilly, and199 crossing the park at the foot of the “Canal de la Manche,” one comes presently into the valley of the Oise and, a few kilomètres farther on, the village of Saint Leu d’Esserent lifts its terraced church above the river.
The site of Saint Leu is that of the little peaked Mediterranean214 towns: there is something defensive, defiant215, in the way it grasps its hill-side and lifts its church up like a shield. The town owes this crowning ornament—and doubtless also its own slender existence—to the founding here, in the eleventh century, of a great Cluniac abbey, of which certain Romanesque arcades and a fortified gate may be traced among the débris behind the apse. Of the original church there survives only a round-arched tower, to which, in the latter half of the twelfth century, was added what is perhaps the most homogeneous, and assuredly the most beautiful, early Gothic structure in France. The peculiar117 interest of this church of Saint Leu—apart from its intrinsic nobility of design—lies in the fact of its being, so curiously216, the counterpart, the other side of the shield, of the church of Vézelay. For, as at Vézelay one felt beneath the weight of the200 round openings the impatient stirrings of the pointed arch, so here at Saint Leu, where the latter form at last triumphs, its soaring movement is still held down by the close-knit Romanesque frame of the church. It is hard to define the cause of this impression, since at Saint Leu the pointed style has quite freed itself, structurally217, from Romanesque entraves, all the chief elements of later Gothic construction being blent there in so harmonious195 a composition that, as Mr. Charles Moore has pointed out, the church might stand for a perfect example of “unadorned Gothic.” All that later art could do toward the elaboration of such a style was to add ornament, enlarge openings, and lighten the masses. But by the doing of just that, the immense static value of the earlier proportions was lost—and the distinction of Saint Leu is that it blends, in perfect measure, Gothic lightness with Romanesque tenacity218.
Of this the inside of the church is no less illustrative than its exterior. Though the western bays of the nave were built later than its eastern portion, they end in a narthex on the lines of the outer porch of Vézelay, surmounted by a201 gallery from which the great sweep of the aisles219 and triforium may be felt in all its grandeur220. For, despite the moderate proportions of the church, grandeur and reserve are its dominating qualities—within and without it has attained221 the classic balance that great art at all times has its own ways of reaching.
* * * * *
Westward from Saint Leu, the valley of the Oise, fruitful but somewhat shadeless, winds on toward Paris through pleasant riverside towns—Beaumont, l’Isle-Adam, and the ancient city of Pontoise; and beyond the latter, at a point where the river flings a large loop to the west, one may turn east again and, crossing the forest of Saint Germain, descend222 on Paris through the long shadows of the park of Saint Cloud.
The End
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9
pervading
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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10
quays
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| 码头( quay的名词复数 ) | |
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11
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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12
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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13
necessitated
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| 使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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15
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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16
warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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17
warehouses
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| 仓库，货栈( warehouse的名词复数 ) | |
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18
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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19
sordidness
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| n.肮脏；污秽；卑鄙；可耻 | |
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20
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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21
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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22
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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23
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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24
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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25
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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26
windings
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| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
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27
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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28
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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29
commemorate
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| vt.纪念，庆祝 | |
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30
commemorated
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| v.纪念，庆祝( commemorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31
ravaged
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| 毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫 | |
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32
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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33
stony
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|
| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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34
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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35
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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36
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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37
buttressed
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| v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
tapering
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| adj.尖端细的 | |
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39
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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40
vestige
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|
| n.痕迹，遗迹，残余 | |
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41
feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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42
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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44
shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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45
dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
nucleus
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| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
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47
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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48
silhouette
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|
| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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49
pervasively
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|
| adv.无处不在地，遍布地 | |
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50
possessed
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|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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51
subdued
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|
| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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52
sentimental
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|
| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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53
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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54
structural
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|
| adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的 | |
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55
indirectly
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|
| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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56
stimulating
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|
| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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57
controverting
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|
| v.争论，反驳，否定( controvert的现在分词 ) | |
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58
deduction
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| n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎 | |
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59
component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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60
modifications
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| n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变 | |
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61
lesser
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|
| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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62
legitimate
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|
| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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63
enjoyment
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|
| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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64
slur
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|
| v.含糊地说；诋毁；连唱；n.诋毁；含糊的发音 | |
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65
courageous
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|
| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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66
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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67
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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68
majestic
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|
| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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69
ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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70
underlying
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|
| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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71
contradictory
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|
| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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72
enveloping
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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73
minor
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|
| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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74
manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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75
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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76
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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77
specimens
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|
| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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78
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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79
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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80
knight
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|
| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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81
distinguished
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|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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82
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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83
fortresses
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| 堡垒，要塞( fortress的名词复数 ) | |
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84
secular
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|
| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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85
situated
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|
| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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86
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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87
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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88
exquisite
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|
| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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89
humble
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|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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90
luminously
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| 发光的； 明亮的； 清楚的； 辉赫 | |
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91
concisely
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| adv.简明地 | |
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92
outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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93
shudders
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| n.颤动，打颤，战栗( shudder的名词复数 )v.战栗( shudder的第三人称单数 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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94
stolidity
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|
| n.迟钝，感觉麻木 | |
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95
titanic
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|
| adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的 | |
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96
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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97
turreted
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| a.(像炮塔般)旋转式的 | |
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98
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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99
remarkable
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|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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100
triangular
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|
| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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101
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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102
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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103
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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104
corroborate
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| v.支持，证实，确定 | |
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105
sterile
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| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
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106
conjecturing
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| v. & n. 推测，臆测 | |
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107
deviation
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| n.背离，偏离；偏差，偏向；离题 | |
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108
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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109
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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110
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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111
prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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112
culmination
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| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
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113
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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114
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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115
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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116
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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117
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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118
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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119
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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120
renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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121
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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122
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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123
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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124
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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125
caressed
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| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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126
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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127
affinities
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| n.密切关系( affinity的名词复数 )；亲近；（生性）喜爱；类同 | |
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128
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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129
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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130
superseding
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| 取代，接替( supersede的现在分词 ) | |
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131
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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132
renovated
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| 翻新，修复，整修( renovate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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133
distinctively
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| adv.特殊地，区别地 | |
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134
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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135
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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136
sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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137
countenances
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| n.面容( countenance的名词复数 )；表情；镇静；道义支持 | |
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138
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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139
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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140
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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141
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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142
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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143
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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144
differentiate
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| vi.(between)区分；vt.区别；使不同 | |
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145
buffoon
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| n.演出时的丑角 | |
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146
unifying
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| 使联合( unify的现在分词 )； 使相同； 使一致； 统一 | |
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147
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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148
mincing
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| adj.矫饰的；v.切碎；切碎 | |
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149
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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150
portraiture
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| n.肖像画法 | |
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151
ascendancy
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| n.统治权，支配力量 | |
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152
efface
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| v.擦掉，抹去 | |
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153
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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154
assortment
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| n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集 | |
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155
impaled
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| 钉在尖桩上( impale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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156
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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157
shimmer
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| v./n.发微光，发闪光；微光 | |
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158
rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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159
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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160
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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161
arsenal
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| n.兵工厂，军械库 | |
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162
citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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163
apex
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| n.顶点，最高点 | |
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164
extremities
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| n.端点( extremity的名词复数 )；尽头；手和足；极窘迫的境地 | |
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165
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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166
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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167
cloister
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| n.修道院；v.隐退，使与世隔绝 | |
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168
cloistered
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| adj.隐居的，躲开尘世纷争的v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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169
lateral
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| adj.侧面的，旁边的 | |
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170
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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171
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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172
arcades
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| n.商场( arcade的名词复数 )；拱形走道（两旁有商店或娱乐设施）；连拱廊；拱形建筑物 | |
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173
arcade
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| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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174
buttresses
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| n.扶壁，扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
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175
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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176
stilted
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| adj.虚饰的；夸张的 | |
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177
niches
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| 壁龛( niche的名词复数 )； 合适的位置[工作等]； （产品的）商机； 生态位（一个生物所占据的生境的最小单位） | |
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178
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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179
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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180
brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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181
effigies
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| n.（人的）雕像，模拟像，肖像( effigy的名词复数 ) | |
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182
silhouettes
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| 轮廓( silhouette的名词复数 )； （人的）体形； （事物的）形状； 剪影 | |
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183
ponderously
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184
expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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185
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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186
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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187
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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188
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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189
saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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190
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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191
tortuously
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192
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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193
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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194
nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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195
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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196
divergences
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| n.分叉( divergence的名词复数 )；分歧；背离；离题 | |
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197
preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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198
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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199
buttressing
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| v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的现在分词 ) | |
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200
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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201
binds
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| v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 )；装订；捆绑；（用长布条）缠绕 | |
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202
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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203
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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204
arcading
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| 连拱饰 | |
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205
evokes
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| 产生，引起，唤起( evoke的第三人称单数 ) | |
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206
militant
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| adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士 | |
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207
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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208
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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209
gilding
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| n.贴金箔，镀金 | |
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210
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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211
reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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212
atone
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| v.赎罪，补偿 | |
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213
glades
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| n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 ) | |
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214
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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215
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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216
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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217
structurally
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| 在结构上 | |
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218
tenacity
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| n.坚韧 | |
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219
aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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220
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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221
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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222
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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